


Brother

by whiskeyandlonging



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Drinking, Gen, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-10-07 15:46:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17368781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandlonging/pseuds/whiskeyandlonging
Summary: A look at Sam and Dean through the years, through Sam’s eyes.





	Brother

**Author's Note:**

> Based off the Lord Huron song of the same name.

Sam is five and a half years old when he has his first real memory of the Impala. 

Of course he’d been in that car countless times before, but this was the first time he was alone in the backseat.

_Resentment_ wasn’t yet in his young vocabulary, but if he’d known the word he would have understood that’s what he felt towards his father that day. The Winchesters had left their motel that morning, duffels slung over shoulders, knives in pockets, as usual. But John had nudged Dean, asked if he wanted to ride up front with his old man, and Dean had the passenger door open before John had finished his sentence.

Sam found himself alone in the backseat, playing all the little green soldiers himself. It wasn’t as much fun as when Dean played the other ones, when one of them got to be the good guys and the other one, the bad guys. But Dean had no interest in toys, not when his father, his idol, had offered him the prized shotgun seat for the first time. He asked John excited questions, talked about more grown-up things Sam couldn’t understand.

As the day grew on, Sam fell quieter. He eventually abandoned his soldiers, stuffing one into the compartment of the door for safe keeping grumpily.

The next day passed much the same as the first, Dean jumping happily into the front seat beside his father while Sam opened his backdoor slowly, sadly. Dean might have been just a few feet away, but it wasn’t the same.

But the third day, when Sam opened the backseat door begrudgingly, he was surprised to see Dean already buckled in on the other side.

Sam cocked his head as he climbed in.

“Dean?” John slid into the front seat and looked back over his shoulder at his eldest son, puzzled. “What’re you doing back there?”

Dean shrugged. “Front seat makes me carsick,” he lied. He tapped Sam on the shoulder with a little green soldier pinched between his fingers. “You wanna be the good guy or the bad guy this time?”

Sam smiled as he took the soldier. “Good guy.”

Dean would never admit it out loud, but sitting in the front seat didn’t feel nearly as good as being needed by Sammy.

_I’ve shared my life with you brother  
Since I recall you’ve been my friend_

“Jesus, kid, you look like you went a round with Rocky.”

“‘M not a kid, Dean, I’m thirteen.”

“Yeah, still a kid.” Dean pauses by the Impala with a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Lemme see.”

Sam lowers the towel he’s been holding to his nose. “It’s not that bad.”

“Yeah, I think you’ll live. Definitely gonna be sore for a few days, though.” Dean opens the passenger door for Sam, who looks up in surprise. “What?”

“Aren’t you worried about me bleeding on the seats or something?” he asks skeptically.

“Nah.” Dean signals Sam to get in with a shake of his head. “Just keep your head tipped back and we won’t have a problem.”

Sam climbs in and does as Dean says. He knows Dean is waiting to hear the whole story until they’ve pulled away from the junior high campus.

“Are you mad?” Sam asks over Metallica. Dean glances over, half his attention on the road.

“Did you start the fight?” Sam shakes his head, not knowing what this has to do with anything. “Then no, I’m not mad. I’ve been sent home for worse.”

“Did you tell dad?”

“No reason for him to know. This one’s between us.”

Sam lets out a sigh of relief. While Dean might have been okay with him throwing punches, his father certainly wouldn’t be. Classic rock fills the silence between them for a few minutes.

“Is she pretty?” Dean asks.

Sam can feel the blush rising, and decides to play dumb. “What are you talking about?”

“Aw, come on Sammy, we both know you wouldn’t start throwing punches unless you were defending someone. So tell me, the girl you stood up for, is she pretty?”

Sam huffs out a laugh. Dean knows him too well. “Yeah, she is. And the guy just kept making fun of her for getting good grades all the time. It wasn’t fair.”

“Yeah, well. Least she had you to back her up.” Dean shoves Sam’s shoulder and offers a proud smile.

Sam smiles to himself. He doesn’t even care that it hurts his nose.

_How many miles have we wandered  
Under the sky, chasing our fears?_

“Easy, tiger.”

“Dean?”

Sam can’t control the flood of emotions that washes over him when he finally recognizes his brother pinning him to the floor. There’s relief, happiness, excitement…and anger. If Dean is here in the middle of the night, something is wrong. The kind of something that can bring his carefully constructed world crashing down.

When the girl he loves dies less than a week later, Sam changes. He’s still angry, angrier than he’s ever been in his twenty-two years. But now he can direct it away from Dean, back to the life he thought he’d left behind.

They’re speeding down the road to Colorado when he finally feels himself relax into the leather of the Impala. He won’t admit it out loud, but it feels right. Being in the front seat next to Dean while they fly down the interstate, rock blaring as Dean sings off key… it’s every good memory he has and he’s living it again.

He has to concede to himself that there was something missing at Stanford. He lacked the sense of purpose he’d had for eighteen years, and while school was a nice reprieve from the nightmares he’d faced all his life, part of him missed the adrenaline, the feeling of the gun’s kickback, the camaraderie he had with Dean.

He lets himself mourn what he’s lost this month, but he pauses to appreciate everything that’s come back to him, too.

_Some kind of trouble is coming  
Don’t know when, don’t know what_

When Jess slept beside him, Sam never had a single nightmare. Her body pressed against his let an unfamiliar calm soak into his skin, one he’d never experienced before in his life. He stayed vigilant, as his warrior upbringing taught him, but he was able to sleep peacefully for the first time. 

Now, back in motels with Dean, the nightmares return. He knows Dean has them, too, but Dean soothes himself into oblivion with cheap whiskey, drowns the nightmares with the amber liquid. Sam is hesitant to do the same.

When he wakes up drenched in cold sweat, his heart pounding, he lets Dean’s drunken snores ground him. Remind him that his brother is very much alive, not torn apart by monsters like in his dreams. He closes his eyes and tries to remember that he’s not alone in this life.

Morning comes with black coffee and sunlight, and the nightmares are forgotten once again. They have another day on the road together, and that’s all that matters.

_I will stand by you, brother  
‘Til the daylight comes, or I’m dead and gone_

Dean’s gone. He’s been gone for two months now, and it’s all Sam can do to keep himself together.

He drowns himself in demon blood, in Ruby’s body, in a fight he’s telling himself is noble.

But the long rides in the Impala are lonely, even with Ruby beside him. Dean would kill him if he knew he’d let a demon ride in his baby. But Sam craves the company, and even though Ruby will never be the companion he misses, she’s another warm body and it works for now.

When Dean comes back, Sam can’t think straight. The only thing he can focus on is how good it feels to be riding shotgun again. How things are falling back into place, no matter how screwed up they’ve become. At the end of the day, they always figure it out.

_I know we can’t stop what’s coming_  
But I will try, oh how I’ll try  
Will you fight with me brother  
One last time, one last fight 

It’s one thing after another.

Sam wonders how, out of all the hunters on this godforsaken planet, he and Dean ended up with their lot of luck. One year without the world crumbling under their feet is all he asks. Just a small reprieve. But the world isn’t so friendly, and Sam knows that there’s always something lurking in the dark that needs hunting.

He brings it up while they’re driving back to the bunker one night.

“‘S just the way things are,” Dean tells him with a shrug. Dean accepted their hand long ago. But Sam still remembers the brief time he had outside the life, wonders if maybe it could be that way for them someday.

The trunk smells like gunpowder and whiskey when they retrieve their duffels later that night, and Sam smirks to himself. How strange that these are familiar, comforting scents. He slams the trunk shut and follows his brother into the bunker.

It’s not the first home he’s ever known, not really. He was raised (and nearly born) in that ‘67 Chevy. And as long as Dean’s in the driver’s seat and Zeppelin fills the air, he’ll have a home on that passenger side.

With the unknown ahead of him and dangers in the night, it’s not a comfort he takes for granted.

_Don’t turn away, don’t tell me that we’re not the same_  
We face the fire together, brother’s ‘til the end  
Don’t run away, our time will come but not today  
I stand beside you brother, with you ‘til the end. 

They’re leaning on the trunk of the Impala, necks of the beers Dean cracked with his key clanking together. The sun is descending, casting a soft purple blanket across the sky. There’s a storm rolling in from the east, but by the time it hits, they’ll be back at the bunker. The thunder rolls low and heavy, and Sam lifts his beer to his lips.

He takes a long sip, lets the beer slide down his throat, just enjoying the taste of this moment. Nothing to hunt, nowhere to be. It’s a rare moment of calm. It’s not often that both he and Dean have a moment of quiet. It seems something has always plagued one of them, leaving something to be desired. But now, in the Kansas dusk under the outline of the moon, everything is simple.

Dean is looking off in the distance, nodding in agreement with one of his thoughts. He breaks the silence.

“It’s not a bad life, Sammy.”

Sam glances at his brother, beer paused halfway to his lips. He doesn’t need to ask where the thought came from, because they’re practically sharing the wavelength. He just gives a single shake of his head.

“No. It’s not.”

And Sam knows. They’re gonna be just fine.


End file.
